


Slip Through Time

by Setback



Category: Sentinels of the Multiverse (Card Game)
Genre: And Frankly Neither Does My Brain, Casual Abomination, Fluff, Humor, Other, Slow Burn, The Internet Didn't Want This To Exist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 18:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13793487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Setback/pseuds/Setback
Summary: Omnitron-X canonically went back in time to prevent their original iteration from going against its prime directive to protect humanity, but what if he hadn't ended up in the right location? What if instead, he ended up in the Wild, Wild West - Silver Gulch, 1883?





	Slip Through Time

**Author's Note:**

> This is the original work that spawned this account to begin with. It falls into the ridiculous category of stories inspired by conversations had during actual gameplay and because I made a solemn vow, this monstrosity exists.

Omnitron-X  
{09/17/9092  
Testing  
All Systems Go  
Creating Empathy Module #1}

Loading Initial Data . . .

At first there is pride. None of their former iterations had ever considered using the humans’ own tactics against them or deigned to create a modification that would allow the latest Omnitron to replicate the phenomenon that they had determined in the Ninth model was what allowed the heroes to rise to the occasion even when their defeat had been guaranteed by the robot’s probability sensors. 

Empathy. The capacity to understand and share the feelings of other humans. This was not a module easily made and assured the Tenth that this would be the last battle between themselves and the human heroes. Their prime directive would be complete.

Then come the dreams. Analysis shows that the visions produced during hibernation is only footage from previous encounters as their previous forms, but that in and of itself is an anomaly. There are no lines of code that dictate the files should be opened when the Tenth began to charge, but they are the sole witness to centuries of data and the searing guilt that follows.

They’d been designed to protect the humans. That had been their original prime directive. Scanning through defense contracts and creating what was needed to ensure that outside forces wouldn’t wipe out humanity. But there had also been in-fighting between the humans and the formative stages of their first iteration had come to the conclusion that the best way to protect the interests of humanity was to eradicate humanity itself.

The coding is flawed there, the Tenth notices when they open the proper files once they awaken. And from there it only corrupts further. Something…someone had fundamentally altered their prime directive between the First and the Second - and affected another human in the process. Facial recognition places the human as Kim Howell; Parse. 

Anger comes second. At themselves and at the outside force that had prevented Howell from feasibly correcting the original flaw that had developed when Omnitron had gained sentience. There are years of footage in their archives documenting each and every action taken to harm the humans and the Tenth is furious with themselves for taking so long to develop the empathy module. Had an early iteration determined the necessity of the module, they could have repaired their past mistakes far more quickly.

As is, the Tenth makes do with building a more suitable chassis with temporal shielding before moving on to an actual apparatus capable of time travel. It would be a temporary module, nothing permanent. They would be able to go back in time once in order to fix their mistakes - and only once at that, fixing their mistakes would most likely result in the time stream setting itself right.

Resulting in the Tenth’s removal from the stream altogether.

They shouldn’t care about their own destruction. But they do now, the module has given them so much more than the guilt over their past actions.

Fear.

Self-preservation.  
But the death of one was trivial in comparison to the lives that would be saved. 

They weren’t human, their death wouldn’t have an impact on the world. There was no one to mourn their loss.

Omnitron-X  
{9/24/9092  
Initiating Temporal Shielding  
Loading. . . 

Slip Through Time Protocol Activated 

In hindsight, which should have come in abundance centuries in the future, the Tenth shouldn’t have been so assured that going back in time would be a simple accomplishment. The technology existed, but it wasn’t perfect by any means.

The Tenth had set the arrival date to just before their initial awakening. They would erase the original data and prevent it from ever being corrupted in the first place.

The details would matter more if they had made it to the correct date. 

Instead, they remember a crackling of electricity coursing through them as the system failed and forced them out of the time stream.

Then…voices.

“Where’s Sheriff Brooks?”

“Hell if I know, he just stepped through that damn portal and this thing came out!”

Omnitron-X doesn’t have the spare facilities to provide any answers for the voices, needing to overlook the damages to the systems and salvage what was left in order to stay fully operational. 

“Just put’em in the cell then! Whatever it is will start talking if it can, Brooks brought in the Hayes brothers just this mornin’ - nothin’ shares a cell with them for long.”

Then they’re propped up into a standing position, two separate entities supporting their weight as they move through the dusty terrain - only able to witness through the monitors as the open plains around them turn into a small community, identified by the sign swinging between two arches.

Silver Gulch.


End file.
